Hey, marketers, wouldn’t life be sweeter if you could sue prospects for not opening your letters or e-mails?
Of course it’s an absurd prospect. But that’s the net effect of a lawsuit several media firms have filed against Sonicblue, whose ReplayTV program recording product includes a commercial-skipping feature.
The lawsuit seeks to stop Sonicblue from marketing the device. The plaintiffs are claiming that anything enabling a consumer to ignore sponsors amounts to theft of services.
Direct marketers know how to counteract this. It’s part of copywriting 101. Give the audience something worth watching and it will be watched. Messages should educate the targets. Entertain them. Ease their lives. Provide a direct benefit.
Television is all-too-ready to point to the Lyndon Johnson “Daisy” campaign ad and Apple’s “1984” commercial. Y’know, the ones that are touted as having tremendous recall despite having run only once — except for the six hundred times each has been featured on various “Best of Television Commercials” specials.
But the truth is those commercials are grabbers. If consumers are skipping today’s commercials, it’s because most of them are eminently skippable. A thousand lawsuits ain’t gonna change that – but one good course in ad writing might.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Following my column on user-unfriendly product guides, [Loose Cannon: Who Owns the Owners Manuals? DIRECT Newsline, May 31, 2002], Robert S. Grossman, a Beverly Hills, CA-based technical writer sent a four-volume instruction set his firm had designed.
It read like a comic book, with colorful, easy-to-follow illustrations and simple text showing how to program a VCR. And not just any VCR: This one features a voice-activated remote. After pawing through the books I felt I could have programmed it myself, even without the product in front of me.
In his cover note, Grossman wrote: “As you will see, we’re both coming from the same place regarding what a manual should do and say – and shouldn’t. … You and me against the world.”
Actually, Bob, judging from the volume of emphatic and unprintable comments I received, the world’s on our side.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact [email protected].
Network
